rator is reincarnated in the body of a stray dog, in
which form he seeks out his family and subse-
quently solves his own murder. The Rats, The Sur-
vivor, and Fluke would all later be turned into
motion pictures.
The Spear (1978) blends the occult with a
story of espionage. A neo-Nazi organization has
discovered a genuinely supernatural power source
and is planning to use it to achieve world domina-
tion. The novel is in many ways reminiscent of
Dennis WHEATLEY’s occult adventure novels. The
Dark(1980) is something of a reprise of The Fog,
although this time the source of a plague of homi-
cidal madness is an occult force rather than an an-
cient gas. It was with The Jonah (1981) that
Herbert began to receive serious attention as an
emerging leader in the horror field. Jim Kelso is a
police officer whose life has been troubled by a
long series of disasters and tragedies that are in-
flicted on his friends and companions. The reader
is seduced into believing that Kelso himself is re-
sponsible during his periodic blackouts, but even-
tually Herbert reveals that he has a dark twin
whose jealousy of his shadow brother’s happier life
leads to secretive and deadly retribution.
Shrine(1983) is reminiscent of John COYNE’s
The Piercing.A young woman acquires the power
to heal by touching, which many hail as evidence
of divine intervention, although it is actually a
clever ploy by the devil. Effective at times, the
novel is nevertheless a considerable letdown from
his previous one. His next, Domain(1984), extends
his series about mutant rats, this one taking place
after a nuclear war and more properly science fic-
tion than horror. Moon(1985) is also disappoint-
ing, another story of a psychic whose mental link
to a serial killer works in both directions, forcing
him to track down the killer before he becomes the
next victim.
The Magic Cottage(1986) is a haunted house
story with a few interesting twists, and Sepulchre
(1987) more effectively mixes demonic possession
with the world of high finance. It was with
Haunted (1988) that Herbert introduced David
Ash, a psychic investigator, pitting him against the
spirits in a nicely conceived haunted house. The
book became a moody and uneven film under the
same title in 1995. Ash returns in The Ghosts of
Sleath (1995), a much better novel in which a
town plagued by ghosts also harbors the secret of
an ancient cult. There are more secret cults in
Creed(1990) and Others(1999), both of which are
quite good, and a mix of telepathic children,
voodoo, and other fantastic elements in Portent
(1992), which is Herbert’s weakest book. Once
(2002) cleverly reveals the true and darker side of
fairy tales, and Nobody True(2004) is another story
of a dead man posthumously tracking down his
own killer. Herbert has all the tools necessary to be
a significant genre writer but has a tendency to re-
turn to already stale themes, handling them skill-
fully but without sufficient novelty. His last several
novels have been very uneven, but his better work
is still compelling.Hobb, Robin(1952– )
Robin Hobb is the pseudonym of Margaret
Ogden, who began her career as a fantasy writer
under the name Megan Lindholm in 1983. Her
debut trilogy consisted of Harpy’s Flight(1983),
The Windsingers(1984), and The Limbreth Gate
(1984), whose protagonist predictably finds her-
self on the run from supernatural forces, includ-
ing harpies, all of whom she outsmarts. She added
one additional novel to the sequence some years
later, Luck of the Wheels(1989). The interesting
imagery and detail in the background make the
books of some interest, but the stories themselves
are undistinguished.
Wizard of the Pigeons(1986) is noticeably bet-
ter, a contemporary fantasy about a Vietnam vet-
eran who uses magical powers to combat a
supernatural menace in a major city. Hobb/Lind-
holm then moved away from a contemporary set-
ting, switching instead to a two-part fantasy series
set in prehistory consisting of The Reindeer People
(1988) and Wolf’s Brother(1988), whose primary
conflict involves a female healer in a primitive
tribe and her troubles with both mundane and
magical rivals. Cloven Hooves(1992) returns to a
contemporary setting and is the best novel to ap-
pear under the Lindholm name. A woman discov-
ers that the imaginary companion she believed in
as a child has returned and poses a threat to her
family. She also collaborated with Steven BRUSTHobb, Robin 161